High-rise buildings are partly visible in heavy smog in Guangzhou city, South China's Guangdong province, Jan 31, 2014. [Photo/Yangzi Evening News]

Severe laws are needed to govern a country when it is in disorder, as a Chinese saying goes.

That is exactly the attitude of China's decision-makers toward the environment that has increasingly caused public concern and fueled public grievances.

The system for environmental monitoring and inspection enforcement set out in the communiqué passed by the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee is expected to change the dilemma the country's environmental protection efforts have encountered until now. Till date, environmental protection has in most cases been ignored in favor of economic development by GDP-obsessed local economic planners and environmental assessments and enforcement remain under the jurisdiction of local governments.

As a sign of the central government's resolve to push for intensified law enforcement to protect the environment, the vertical management of environmental monitoring and inspection enforcement will effectively prevent the fabrication of false environment data by local governments and compromise their protection for environmentally destructive projects that boost local GDP performance at the cost of the environment. It is not rare for some local governments to do their utmost to block the country's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution for short-term economic gains.

Since the vertical management mechanism will unavoidably touch the interests of local government officials, the obstructions the enforcement team is expected to encounter means it also needs to be granted greater powers.